Class: History Number of Students: 5 Year: 2 Number of Lessons: 2 (1 hour 30 minutes per lesson)
Outline
During our time at Bobergsgymnasiet, we were given the opportunity to take a history class on the topic of nationalism. After being taught about nationalism in terms of both its left-wing and right-wing forms, the students were given the profile of a country in a state of crisis and tasked with forming a nationalist political party, either left or right-wing, who would help restore the country to its former glory. They had to outline their plans in a manifesto.
Lesson One
We began the first lesson by exploring the concepts of national identity and nationalism using a short powerpoint presentation, discussing the ideas with the students throughout. We explained what is meant by national identity and some of the factors which can influence it such as music, sports, history and architecture. We offered some examples of things which contribute to our feelings of national identity and pride and then asked the students to think about it in terms of their own country. This led to talking about nationalism, both left-wing and right-wing, and the views held by people who support each form.
The students were then told what their task would be for the lessons and were split into two groups, each being given an information pack. This included a profile and brief history of a fictional European country called The Democratic Republic of Saxa Vord, which was said to be in a state of crisis due to the collapse of the EU, and images of a gallery of great cultural significance to the country which had recently been destroyed. The pack also contained a diagram which explained left and right wing politics and an outline of the task.
The groups then had to choose whether they wanted to form the left-wing or right-wing party, as both of the opposing sides had to be represented to give balance to the task, and once this was decided they were free to begin working on their plans to help their country in its recovery. They had to create a manifesto, covering a number of political policies including:
Education
Healthcare
Services
Unemployment
Immigration
Military
They were told that their manifestos could also include a range of other materials that might help strengthen their party’s campaign and help instill a renewed feeling of national pride among the people. Some suggestions were:
Political poster
Campaign leaflet
Party political broadcast
Plans for new developments
New flag/emblem/anthem for their country
We left the students to work on the task for the rest of the lesson and told them that they would have more time in the next lesson. We went between both groups checking that they understood the topic and what they were being asked to do.
Lesson Two
At the start of the second lesson we briefly went over the task again to remind the students what they had to do and then let them carry on with their work.
Once the time allocated for the task was finished, we invited both groups to come together to explain and defend their plans for the future of Saxa Vord. We guided them through the discussion, policy by policy, and encouraged them to debate left/right-wing views.
At the end of the lesson we told them that we had loosely based our fictional country on Nazi Germany and spoke about some of the political policies and ideas from that time, as an illustration of extremist right-wing nationalism.
Before the students left we also asked them to fill out a short evaluation sheet to let us know what they thought about the lessons.
Links to Personalised Learning
This rich task has strong links to the ‘Curriculum Entitlement and Choice’ component of Personalised Learning since the students were free to make decisions about how they wanted to carry out the task throughout both of the lessons. Firstly they chose whether they wanted to represent the left-wing or right-wing group and their plan for the country was entirely up to them as well. They could decide which other documents/materials to include in their manifesto and the presentation of the end product was also left completely open.
At the end of the task the two groups of students had to explain their policies to each other, then question and defend their decisions. This is a good example of ‘Assessment for Learning’.
Finally, as the lesson was taught using a variety of methods such as powerpoint, discussion, group work and presentation, the task also links to the ‘Teaching and Learning Strategies’ component.
Feedback
The students rated the lessons between 5/10 and 9/10, with the average working out at 6.8/10.
Some of the things the students said they liked about the lessons included the debate/discussion element, having the lessons in English and the task itself being fun.
We also asked the students to tell us what they disliked about the lessons. One student said that they didn’t quite understand the task and another said they didn’t want to hear so much about the Nazis.
Things that the students felt would improve the lessons were having a few more people per group and explaining the task better.
In general I think that the lessons were a success. The students got involved in the task and came up with a lot of ideas throughout. Hopefully the task gave them a good introduction to the topic of nationalism and also gave them an opportunity to practise their English. However, one of the negative comments we received was that they felt the task wasn’t explained well enough and this is something which we have encountered in other lessons as well. Although we ask students if they know what they are meant to do many times during a lesson, it would appear that often they haven’t understood things fully. In future we will have to try to make sure that they really have understood the task and explanations, and perhaps we should aim to speak a little slower and repeat things more often if we are teaching students who have English as their second language. This should help students get the most they can out of the tasks. Another point made by one of the students was that they would like to have had more people per group. This is obviously a factor beyond our control but it is actually something which we felt would have improved the task as well. Class size is definitely something which can influence the success of a lesson.
Case Study
Class: History
Number of Students: 5
Year: 2
Number of Lessons: 2 (1 hour 30 minutes per lesson)
Outline
During our time at Bobergsgymnasiet, we were given the opportunity to take a history class on the topic of nationalism. After being taught about nationalism in terms of both its left-wing and right-wing forms, the students were given the profile of a country in a state of crisis and tasked with forming a nationalist political party, either left or right-wing, who would help restore the country to its former glory. They had to outline their plans in a manifesto.
Lesson One
We began the first lesson by exploring the concepts of national identity and nationalism using a short powerpoint presentation, discussing the ideas with the students throughout. We explained what is meant by national identity and some of the factors which can influence it such as music, sports, history and architecture. We offered some examples of things which contribute to our feelings of national identity and pride and then asked the students to think about it in terms of their own country. This led to talking about nationalism, both left-wing and right-wing, and the views held by people who support each form.
The students were then told what their task would be for the lessons and were split into two groups, each being given an information pack. This included a profile and brief history of a fictional European country called The Democratic Republic of Saxa Vord, which was said to be in a state of crisis due to the collapse of the EU, and images of a gallery of great cultural significance to the country which had recently been destroyed. The pack also contained a diagram which explained left and right wing politics and an outline of the task.
The groups then had to choose whether they wanted to form the left-wing or
right-wing party, as both of the opposing sides had to be represented to give balance to the task, and once this was decided they were free to begin working on their plans to help their country in its recovery. They had to create a manifesto, covering a number of political policies including:
They were told that their manifestos could also include a range of other materials that might help strengthen their party’s campaign and help instill a renewed feeling of national pride among the people. Some suggestions were:
We left the students to work on the task for the rest of the lesson and told them that they would have more time in the next lesson. We went between both groups checking that they understood the topic and what they were being asked to do.
Lesson Two
At the start of the second lesson we briefly went over the task again to remind the students what they had to do and then let them carry on with their work.
Once the time allocated for the task was finished, we invited both groups to come together to explain and defend their plans for the future of Saxa Vord. We guided them through the discussion, policy by policy, and encouraged them to debate left/right-wing views.
At the end of the lesson we told them that we had loosely based our fictional country on Nazi Germany and spoke about some of the political policies and ideas from that time, as an illustration of extremist right-wing nationalism.
Before the students left we also asked them to fill out a short evaluation sheet to let us know what they thought about the lessons.
Links to Personalised Learning
This rich task has strong links to the ‘Curriculum Entitlement and Choice’ component of Personalised Learning since the students were free to make decisions about how they wanted to carry out the task throughout both of the lessons. Firstly they chose whether they wanted to represent the left-wing or right-wing group and their plan for the country was entirely up to them as well. They could decide which other documents/materials to include in their manifesto and the presentation of the end product was also left completely open.
At the end of the task the two groups of students had to explain their policies to each other, then question and defend their decisions. This is a good example of ‘Assessment for Learning’.
Finally, as the lesson was taught using a variety of methods such as powerpoint, discussion, group work and presentation, the task also links to the ‘Teaching and Learning Strategies’ component.
Feedback
The students rated the lessons between 5/10 and 9/10, with the average working out at 6.8/10.
Some of the things the students said they liked about the lessons included the debate/discussion element, having the lessons in English and the task itself being fun.
We also asked the students to tell us what they disliked about the lessons. One student said that they didn’t quite understand the task and another said they didn’t want to hear so much about the Nazis.
Things that the students felt would improve the lessons were having a few more people per group and explaining the task better.
In general I think that the lessons were a success. The students got involved in the task and came up with a lot of ideas throughout. Hopefully the task gave them a good introduction to the topic of nationalism and also gave them an opportunity to practise their English. However, one of the negative comments we received was that they felt the task wasn’t explained well enough and this is something which we have encountered in other lessons as well. Although we ask students if they know what they are meant to do many times during a lesson, it would appear that often they haven’t understood things fully. In future we will have to try to make sure that they really have understood the task and explanations, and perhaps we should aim to speak a little slower and repeat things more often if we are teaching students who have English as their second language. This should help students get the most they can out of the tasks. Another point made by one of the students was that they would like to have had more people per group. This is obviously a factor beyond our control but it is actually something which we felt would have improved the task as well. Class size is definitely something which can influence the success of a lesson.
Many thanks to Björn Engström for inviting us into his class and to the students for taking part.